# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1864_S372
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

372 The Theological Conflict Now Breaking In Upon the General Synod.

not be allowed to abandon our public testimony against the false
doctrine, and that the Breslau party will by no means tolerate. — Thank
God that our mission work for your synod, and our institution here in
Germany, have now gained so much solid ground, that the separation from
Breslau, as I hope, will bring us no further danger on that account. On
the whole I hope for nothing but blessing for the Lutheran Church of
Germany from the fact that the struggle for pure doctrine is not only
being carried on with such earnestness, but that the Breslau false
doctrine is also seeking to assert itself so powerfully and so
recklessly. That will only call forth an all the clearer counter-
testimony, and those who are of the truth will in the end fall to its
side. So I am, just now, anything but discouraged; on the contrary, I
am full of joyful confidence for the future.

Still one more happy piece of news: on October 15 Pastor Kollmann of
Mecklenburg also moved to us at Steeden, and I hope to have in him now
a dear and excellent helper for our institution. He is both clear and
firm in doctrine, and also well-practiced and experienced in the
instruction of the young. He sends you his heartfelt greetings. I shall
still have to increase the number of my pupils by a few more, since I
can no longer turn away certain individuals among the many who have
applied. So the necessity is forced upon us with such urgency to enlarge
our institution. Well, all this we commend to the Lord.

In most heartfelt love, yours,
Fr. Brunn.

────◆◆────

The Theological Conflict Now Breaking In Upon
the General Synod.
(Translated from the "Lutheran Observer" by Prof. Crämer.)

How the General Synodists view the dispute into which they are coming
ever more and more with the truly Lutheran-minded within their own
body, and what serious, only poorly concealed misgivings they harbor
about it, is shown by the following outburst, which we take from the
"Observer" of October 21 of this year.

"He would have to be a blind observer of the emerging events who did
not perceive the signs of a great theological conflict, into which our
church is now falling, and whose results will decide the fate of our
Zion in this land. Half a century ago our church fell into a similar
conflict, but at that time the contending forces were not of the
gigantic size they are now. The pious, orthodox, zealous Lutheran
patriarchs and founders of our church, who held fast to its confessions
and labored at the building up of the church here with a godly zeal,
were followed by a very different class of theologians and pastors.
Many of them were, in their theology, rationalists, and in worship,
formalists. But about the year 1820 a reaction set in, which